Calendar

Oracle to Outlook Calendar Transition

Oracle Calendar has been the institutional calendaring system for many years. The Oracle Calendar product is no longer being developed or supported and does not work on the latest Mac operating systems (Lion 10.7 or later). Microsoft Live@edu provides a calendar solution (Outlook Calendar) along with the email solution. ITS will be migrating data from Oracle Calendar to Outlook Calendar over the December shut-down.

For Oracle Calendar users, this change will be big! It will take time and effort to get used to the new environment and the new way of scheduling meetings and resources. Meeting organizers, resource managers, and designates in particular need to take this change very seriously. The Microsoft Live Exchange email and calendar environment is a highly regarded collaboration system used by many educational institutions across the world, but there is a significant learning curve associated with using it. In the long run, we are highly confident that this new system will more than meet the IC's community needs but there will be some short term "pain points" during the transition.

Instead of using Oracle Calendar, after the migration users will use either Outlook Web App (OWA) or the Outlook client to manage both email and meetings. Outlook is very different from Oracle Calendar. Users will need to learn new processes for scheduling meetings and appointments, managing shared calendars, setting up access rights, and managing resources.

Changes

Some of the changes you will experience include:

  • Tight integration with email, calendar and contacts - no need to use separate applications
  • Easy access on mobile devices - Syncml and NotifyLink users will no longer need those products.
  • New terminology - appointment versus meeting, delegate versus designate, scheduling assistant etc.
  • New ways of sharing calendars and setting permissions
  • Lots of email for meeting organizers - many meeting functions are handled through a special type of email message
  • Departmental calendar accounts have an email inbox associated with them

Migration Preparation

  • Determine if you need to use the Outlook client (included with Microsoft Office) or if OWA will meet your needs. To help you do that, review this feature list.
  • If you need to use the Outlook client, upgrade to Microsoft Office 2010 for Windows, or Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac. See this recent Intercom article for more details.
  • If you intend to use the Outlook client, you should also begin using Outlook for email as well. Quick guides are available to help with the email transition.
  • By default, Ithaca College community members can see your free/busy times in Outlook, but no other details about a meeting. If this default behavior is not desired, you will need to set up the appropriate permissions prior to the data migration. The Outlook email clients and OWA both offer options but the Outlook clients offer more options for setting permissions. If you want to do this, please attend a workshop and/or read through the quick guide prior to migration.
  • By default, all resources (rooms) are publicly available. If that is not desired, the appropriate permissions will need to be set by the resource owner prior to migration. More details to follow.
  • Only 30 days of Oracle Calendar data will be copied to Outlook. You will be able to reference Oracle Calendar during the spring 2013 semester by using myHome or the Oracle Calendar client.
  • If you want to archive Oracle Calendar data, please use these instructions

Department Accounts

Some departments have a departmental Oracle Calendar account. These accounts are Active Directory accounts and are managed by the "owner" through Netpass Manager. Some departments have email associated with these accounts; others only use the calendar feature. All data associated with Oracle Calendar departmental accounts will be migrated to Outlook. Managers of these accounts can access them via OWA or add the account as an additional email account using the Outlook client. Depending on use, these accounts may need to be "shared" Outlook calendars. 

If only the calendar option is needed, managers can also create an additional Outlook calendar and share it as needed. If a department account was created only for "planning" purposes, sharing a calendar may be a viable alternative.

Room Resources

There are many room resources in Oracle Calendar that may not be functioning as room resources in Outlook Calendar. When the room is booked is it just the room that is invited or are there people attendees as well? If just the room is booked then it may not have to be an Outlook room resource and may be managed with an easier method. Please contact Karen Sunderland if you think this may be the case.

If the Oracle Calendar room functions as a room, resource owners need to set up the appropriate permissions for this room resource prior to the data migration. In order for this to happen, room resources will be created in Outlook Calendar on Wednesday December 17, 2012.

By default, the room resources are:

  • Available to the Ithaca College community for scheduling
  • Configured to auto accept scheduling invitations and to notify the owner in case someone tries to schedule the room before you have set up the permissions

To restrict room resource scheduling, use Outlook Web App. Once the room has been created:

  • Log into Outlook Web App (OWA) using your username and password through myhome
  • Right click on your name in the top right corner
  • Click on Open Other Mailbox
  • Type in the room resource name e.g. stafflunchroom@ithaca.edu and click Open
  • Click on Options, top right corner
  • Click on Settings
  • Configure the Resource Scheduling Options
  • Configure the Resource Scheduling Permissions
  • (Optional) Configure Calendar Appearance, Reminders and Automatic Processing as desired

Reminders

Reminders will not be migrated from Oracle Calendar. If you set you default reminder option in OWA, Outlook 2010, Outlook 2011, prior to the data migration, those reminder settings will be applied to the migrated data. By default, reminders are turned on. 

To set reminders in OWA:

  1. Login to myhome and click on the OWA icon
  2. Click on Options
  3. Click on See All options
  4. Click on Settings
  5. Click on Calendar
  6. Configure the settings based on your personal preferences

To set reminders in Outlook 2010:

  1. Click on the File menu,
  2. Choose Options,
  3. Choose Calendaring
  4. Configure the settings based on your personal preferences

To set reminders in Outlook 2011:

  1. Open Outlook 2011
  2. Click on Outlook
  3. Click on Preferences
  4. Click on Calendar (under Other)
  5. Configure the settings based on your personal preferences